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Thursday, July 16, 2009

Target: Health-Care Waverers

Even as the Blue Dogs start barking about the House's proposed health-care reform bill, the Obama machine is getting itself geared up for a fight. According to this AP story, President Obama's political organization will be running ads in support of health-care in the following states: Arkansas, Indiana, Florida, Louisiana, Maine, North Dakota, Nebraska and Ohio. So those look like some of the areas where he feels he could use some more support. He may especially be trying to apply some pressure to the states' various senators.

A number of the Republicans on this list are probably skeptical about some of the health-care nationalization message (Snowe and Collins are probably perceived as the Republican senators most open to Obama's vision for health-care reform), and a lot of the Democrats, like Bill Nelson, are concerned about the costs of this health-care measure and also about its implications for the private market.

The Democrats listed above aren't the only possible Democratic skeptics "Obamacare" may be facing in the Senate (Joe Lieberman, for example, has voiced some doubts about the "public plan"), but it does seem as though the White House is concerned about them.

In the days ahead, we'll no doubt see more of where the undecided votes stand. Skeptics of this flavor of reform could do worse than contacting some of these undecided members of Congress, both in the House and in the Senate.